


The Tale of Celaeno and Celbalrai

by Minutia_R



Category: Sleeping Dead - Emily Jane White (Song)
Genre: Don't Have to Know Canon, F/F, Gen, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had many sisters, each one bright and fast, beautiful and deadly.  But to me, Celbalrai was the brightest.</p>
<p>They never should have woken her without me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of Celaeno and Celbalrai

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



We were brought forth from the same birth-waters, Celbalrai and I; we first opened our eyes to the same light and unfurled our drying wings in the same harsh, gritty wind. We were created to fight side-by-side, shields overlapping with our sisters’ on the other sides like the scales on the world-serpent, swords falling in the same deadly rhythm like the blades of a great harvester. And we were created to lay side-by-side in dreamless sleep between times in the crystal niches of our mother’s tower.

Our mother had many enemies, who sought to cast down her high tower, to plunder her treasure-rooms and take her secrets for themselves. And I had many sisters, each one bright and fast, beautiful and deadly. But to me, Celbalrai was the brightest. When she gave her piercing battle-cry, the mist came over my eyes, and my blood turned to fire in my veins. When she put her enemies to flight, and pursued them on swift wings, my wings grew lighter too, borne up on the sound of her laughter. I knew where the edge of her sword would land before she started her swing, and before I turned my back, her shield was there to guard it. Of all the slow breaths of my sisters, as we lay down in our crystal niches, I knew hers.

They never should have woken her without me.

The ravens came one night. They were our mother’s messengers, swift as we were, dark where we were light, their only weapons their words. They came to wake us when the time for battle came, and only those they came for woke; the rest of us slept on unknowing. But when they woke Celbalrai, in the niche beside mine, I heard her breath stir, her heart warm and quicken. My own heart warmed to hear it, and my eyes opened, but my heart was still slow, too slow. I saw her fly off after the ravens, her sword bright in her hand, our sisters who lay on her other side with her: Castor and Caph, Capella and Canopus. For the space of a few breaths, I could not move.

But I could not go back to sleep without hearing her fading breath beside me, nor knowing that she was heading into battle without me by her side. So I took up my sword and my shield and followed, but I was slow, too slow, and I was left behind.

Always before, when I had flown to battle with my sisters, I had followed the ravens, looking neither to the right nor the left. But now, seeking the way Celbalrai had gone, I looked, and I wondered.

In treasure-rooms, worked metal and colored stones glittered, bright, but not as bright as my sisters and I. I saw other things, whose use I couldn't fathom, shelves of books and machinery, all of it safe, untouched, for we were there to guard it. But the rooms and corridors were empty but for me and for the occasional raven flitting through bound on some errand or other.

I could have called out when I saw them, but I shrunk from them instead. I had woken up unbidden. Perhaps my mother might have understood, might have helped, but of her I saw no sign. Perhaps she slept a dreamless sleep, as we did, or perhaps we were all of us the dreams that she dreamt in between times of waking.

I had known battle-weariness, and the sweet ache and longing for rest that came upon us when a battle was finished, and it was time to return to our crystal niches. What I felt wandering, lost in my mother's tower, was different. It was boredom, and despair, a feeling of the uselessness of all endeavors. I longed to stop, simply because I could not see the point of going on.

It must have been some instinct that led me to the place I had been made, the great chamber of birth-waters, pool after pool in terraced levels, large or small according to the size of the creatures manufactured there. I saw red-robed acolytes helping a new creature to stand; an ungainly thing it was, with six spindly legs and a single eye, round and white. I could not imagine what it had been made for, and I felt a sadness for it, a tenderness I could not name, as it took a hesitant step, blinking the milky film from its eye. Perhaps it did not know what it had been made for either. Doubtless it would learn.

Perhaps I would have given over to my despair then, and kept hidden in the recesses of the birth-chamber until something found me, or until the tower crumbled to dust with the passing of time. But then I heard something that turned my blood to fire in my veins: Celbalrai's piercing battle cry.

I was no longer lost. I flew, sure as an arrow, through the twisting passages of the tower, and out to the plain where my mother's enemies had gathered.

Still, it was not as it had been, always before when I flew into battle. My eyes had been opened, and I looked. I saw the grasses of the plain, the bushes whose leaves were bright on one side, dull on the other, as the wind ruffled them. Moving things, too, lived on the plain, with six legs and four and with wings like mine. And these things seemed more beautiful to me than the treasures we guarded, and happier than the newborn creature I had seen, and I wished to share them with Celbalrai, to see the wonder in my eyes reflected in hers.

But she was there, ahead, where the grasses were scorched and trampled with battle. The enemies in their great armored shells were already fleeing, but they were not so swift as my sisters, who flew after them and dove with swift-falling swords, leaving lifeless shells of armor twisted and bleeding on the plain.

One of the armored figures, harried and stumbling, turned at bay. Celbalrai dove toward it--and I was slow, too slow; my shield was not there to cover her flank. There was a flash of light, a smell of fire, a sound that blotted out all other sounds--and Celbalrai fell.

Our other sisters--Castor and Caph, Capella and Canopus--fell upon the one who'd brought Celbalrai down, screaming and hacking. First that one, then the other armored ones who'd been fleeter of foot, until the plain was empty of all our mothers' enemies. Capella let loose a full-throated victory cry, and in the distant sky, near the tower's peak, I saw ravens winging toward us to guide us home.

Celbalrai lay on the blighted grass, one wing shattered, blood leaking from her side. Her breath came slowly, and slower still, as if she were only settling down to sleep in her crystal niche. I knelt beside her, my sword and shield set down and forgotten. I spread my wings above her, though there was nothing to shield her from. I did not know what to do.

The ravens arrived, and the others rose up to meet them, but I was still. One flew down to me, and spoke.

"Celaeno. You were not called. Come with us, and go back to sleep."

"But Celbalrai cannot fly," I said. "You must help her."

"That one is broken," said the raven. "Come."

The ravens have no weapons but their words--and I felt myself pierced by those words, captured. I rose to a crouch and spread my wings. In another moment I would have followed the ravens, and left Celbalrai to lie--but I dug my nails into the earth, pulled up clods of dirt and stuffed my ears with them. Though the raven still spoke, I could no longer hear it; I lifted my sword with deadly intent, and it had to flee.

Then I sank back down to the earth. “Mother,” I said, “help us.”

I shook my ears free of every speck of dirt, but no answer came to them. I covered Celbalrai once again with my wings, and waited--for death, or whatever was coming.

It was sleep, but not as I knew it. Strange, senseless images moved through it; I was a raven, amassing bright treasure bit by bit; Celbalrai unfurled a forest in place of her shattered wing; the earth opened up, spoke with our mother’s voice, and swallowed us whole.

A strange sleep, and a strange waking; it brought with it no urgent sense of purpose, but crept upon me slowly, bit by bit. I opened my eyes, and beside me, Celbalrai opened hers.

“Celaeno?” she said.

“I am here,” I answered.

“I dreamed . . .” she said, lifting a hand to her head. Her wings fluttered weakly; the one that had been smashed was no longer a ruin, but nor did it have a full range of motion. “I cannot fly. I cannot return to the tower. What will I do?”

I took her free hand in both of mine. “It will be well. I am here. And oh, Celbalrai--I have so much to show you.”


End file.
